Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday January 08, 2010 @04:36AM
from the somone-has-to-pay dept.

angry tapir writes "A report commissioned by the French Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, urges the introduction of a tax on online advertising such as that carried by Google, which would be used to pay the creators of artistic and other works that lose out to online piracy."

Of course not, as was demonstrated by our tax on blank CD/DVDs.
I think piracy is not the issue here. Sarkozy has tried to take control of most media in France. Now Internet he doesn't understand and he definitely doesn't like. Sounds like his mindset to attack the biggest visible gun in the "field" to try to gain some control : Google. But this bullet is a miss, like most French IT legislation this will be badly implemented and never used in court.

So if I want to use CD's for storing data I have every right to I have to give money to Brittany spears.To make it fair how about we put a "subsidy tax" on artists who can't make decent work but who are getting subsidised and give it to people who are being hurt by that, ie me and everyone else who has no interest in music.

Notice that I never said it was the correct thing to do, I just told why its being done. Lots of pirates seem to think it's some kind of free pass for downloading whatever they like and it somehow makes it legal.

No, the tax is only on blank music CD's. Ever notice that those cd's are a bit more expensive? The only difference is that the tax is paid to the music companies and it makes your mix tapes legal. regular CDRs do not have the tax and do not get the protection. So unless you are buying music CDs and using them for data storage, you are safe:) Of course this is not legal advice and IANAL.

If I have to pay extra for a blank CD to compensate for the pirating I'm suspected of using it for, then why shouldn't I use it for pirating? After all, I've already paid the fine, might as well do the crime.

Note: I live in the Netherlands, where it's still not illegal to copy/download movies or music, yet I still pay the extra tax on blank media.

This is exactly what I mean. You're thinking simply that because you are paying extra for subsidizing piracy, you somehow get the permission to pirate whatever. That is NOT the case.

Exactly the same on extra note, and it used to be the same too where I live. The extra tax isn't there to 'allow' you to pirate whatever. It's there because it's known it happens, and it's there to subsidize some of the value back. It is not a "you are allowed to pirate" tax.

If I pay for something, it is only logical that I have the right to do it. This has, is, and will be the basis of our economic system for quite a while yet. As such, since I have paid for this supposed piracy, I am owed a debt by those receiving this tax money. Note that this is quite different from paying normal taxes; in that case my money will go to improve society as a whole, which I consider to be my own repayment of the debt I owe for being a part of this society. By contrast, this money goes to a very small group of very well off people because they feel that they are losing out on something. In other words I am quite literally paying a fee because they said so.

You have stated that this is not the case, but as of yet have presented exactly zero valid arguments to support your point. Consider the fact that this piracy subsidy is based on a quite obviously flawed idea wherein every download equates to lost money. I will not even get into details about the intrinsic value of a pirate, such as the free advertising of good products potentially resulting in a sale that may not have happened otherwise. I have written a/. post on that before, if you are particularly interested. Regardless whether someone knows that piracy happens or not, this does not give them the right to charge me a fee that goes to provide no services for me, and no services to society as a whole. Once again, we return to the fact that I am owed a debt, and I will most surely collect.

Finally, your store example is incorrect. It is indeed the store that loses money. Pricing of products is a difficult game, and few consumers will accept an increase in price just because the store had a bad day with thieves. This is why you sometimes see stories of people losing their livelihood because they have been robbed. Granted, a store might potentially use a part of their profits to cover for stolen articles, but this is a whole different story from a government enforced tax on a product that only benefits one specific group of people that has nothing to do with the development, production, or sale of the product. So in other words, you are trying to compare a situation where a store might get 10% profit on an item, and use 2% to finance lost articles, and a situation where an unrelated third party gets 100% profit on an item, because they managed to lobby their way to such a subsidy.

Cause and Effect. Debt and Repayment. All things in the universe must be balanced. Asking people not to is like asking the sun not to shine. It is certainly entertaining to see you try, but sad at the same time.

I agree with your point that if they are taxing you and that money goes to some company, that the company in turn actually owes you something.

But when you talk about the intrinsic value of a pirate, you come off as hypocritical. If a person takes from a company, then shouldn't he owe something as well? You can say he could create a sale, but you can't really prove that a pirate produces a sale or sales. It is the flip side of the same argument you are using.

The tax on fast cars would probably go to police, hospitals, courts, and other people that may be involved when fast cars are driven unsafely. This would finance enforcement, emergency response, and litigation. In other words, by paying a fast car tax, I would again benefit society, helping to prevent and resolve a potentially deadly situation.

The main contrast with the CD/DVD tax is that this tax goes to benefit a very small section of the population, offering neither me, nor anyone involved in the CD/DVD

The tax on blank music CD's DID legalize the duplicating of CD's for the purpose of distributing them for non-commercial purposes. It doesn't "allow illegal things". What does that even mean? It is either illegal or not. This tax was heavily debated in Congress and you can watch the videos from c-span or read the transcript. The question presented to [the recording industry] that the debate ended on was "Will this settle the issue?", and the response was a strong affirmative "yes". For Congress, the purpose

You're not concerned.Contrary to what the summary said, it's not a tax for artist.

The problem is twofold:- Google France declares to the french IRS 40 000 000 of revenues, while 800 000 000 coming from french companies are declared in Ireland to evade french taxes. Basically, if french money is good enough for Google to open some offices in France, they should pay taxes.- Content providers (the like of Slashdot lemonde.fr whatever) have seen their ad revenue decrease. There is doubts on whether it comes

The internet has been around for 15 years at this point. At first it was understandable the large swaths of people who just couldn't grasp how it works.

But by now everyone should at least have some sense for it, especially policy makers. At this point, it's like saying you don't understand these "horseless carriage" things, and that you should be required to feed them once a day.

There is no connection, of course.
In France we *love* to tax unrelated business one for each other. Last year, to compensate the lifting of advertising on public TV channels, the french government decided to tax the telcos and the ISPs. Why ? Because they're making money, so why not ?
The tax has not to make any sense, it has to tax successful businesses that make money. Oh, plus Google is evil and want to scan our beautiful books — you see, another reason !

I'm curious, if you own a TV in the UK, don't subscribe to any cable network, and the UK switches to a digital on-air signal but you don't buy a converter box... then would you no longer have to pay that tax since you cannot receive any TV signals?

I sincerely believe that they should tax mp3 players more, because we all know people use them to listen to stolen music. And they should tax headphones more. And they should tax trains and buses and the subway, because that's where people use mp3 players. And I think the best way to handle it would be to tax all people who are not deaf, because they can hear music. Also, deaf people who can read, because some books talk about music, and you never know.

Everybody knows that people use web browsers to look for illegal downloads on torrent sites so let's tax browsers. Wait, there are free browsers so how about taxing links? Web sites will pay for every link clicked. Wait, some web sites are free to use (mine is one of them) so let's tax only per profit sites. Every per profit site to report clicks to the French government in 3... 2... 1...

Article 30 TFEU prohibits member states from levying any duties on goods crossing a border, both goods produced within the EU and those produced outside. Once a good has been imported into the EU from a third country and the appropriate customs duty paid, Article 29 TFEU dictates that it shall then be considered to be in free circulation between the member states.

It is perfectly legal to circumvent national taxes by buying goods in another European country. Many people in Belgium buy their electronics in Germany because the VAT is lower there.

You know what to do. Form the IIAA(Ice Industry Association of America) and lobby politicians for FMIA(Fridge Millenium Icing Act) and start sending letters to everyone suspected of having fridges but not paying you, then use the money most of them pony up to avoid a court case to sue the ones that don't pony up, so that everyone sees that you mean business. don't forget ridiculous sums($50,000 for each ice cube you could fit in the defendants fridge). start displaying "FRIDGES ARE A CRIME AND WE WILL FI

start displaying "FRIDGES ARE A CRIME AND WE WILL FIND YOU" signs all over shops that sell them, much like the movies.

That makes MORE sense than the piracy ads at the movie theater. A better analogy would be screaming "FRIDGES ARE A CRIME AND WE WILL FIND YOU" at everyone who goes out and buys your icecubes, just in case he might ever decide to get a fridge instead.

Although a great recurring Slashdot meme, the "just fix your business model" viewpoint is utterly and completely retarded and ignorant.

It would not be validly applied in any other circumstance. E.g. let's say that businesses using Open Source are taxed heavily to compensate for lost VAT in commercial software. Consequently, a group of Open Source developers who rely on donations to do full-time development work experience a shortfall in donations and complain about that. Comments like "Yeah, learn to live with it", "You're behind the times", "Dinosaurs do one thing: Die out", "Rethink your development model", "Just find out how to do it" etc. are meaningless.

Even if the artists shouldn't change their business model, why is it in order to punish those who did change their business model?

This tax is going to target companies completely unrelated to artists (SaaS companies for instance). I'm pretty sure they aren't the ones pirating music. Also I'm also pretty sure that their customers (people who buy SaaS) generally don't pirate music.

The difference is the laws. In your example the laws applied are unhealthy and supporting one group. Or hurting open source. This is bad because it doesn't support new products, new innovations, competition or cost effective spread of products. Those are pretty much the only reasons laws should be in place... to create a better market. A market that the people want.

In the music business stupidity we see the opposite happening. Laws are being created, exist or modified in ways that make the market WORSE. C

In related news, France has decided to tax car dealerships to help cover the losses insurance companies suffer as a result of car theft.

A report commissioned by the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand urges the introduction of a tax on online advertising such as that carried by Google, which would be used to pay the creators of artistic and other works who lose out to online piracy... The report was written by Patrick Zelnik, Guillaume Cerutti and Jacques Toubon. Zelnik is president of Impala, a network of independent record companies

Yeah, no conflict of interest there.

In their report, the authors also called on the French antitrust regulator, the Authorité de la Concurrence, to look at whether Google has a monopoly on search engine and search advertising services in France, and whether the problems faced by online publishers could in any way be related to Google's business methods.

IOW, the report explored various ways of screwing a foreign company for being too successful in a local market, having previously failed to create a successful competitor [euobserver.com] even though it had funding from the government to help it along.

The report was written by Patrick Zelnik, Guillaume Cerutti and Jacques Toubon. Zelnik is president of Impala, a network of independent record companies

He's also the founder of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's - the president's wife - record label. The others appear to be part of the "club" too, based on Google results...

IOW, the report explored various ways of screwing a foreign company for being too successful in a local market, having previously failed to create a successful competitor even though it had funding from the government to help it along.

What a bunch of losers - even with help from their corrupt buddies in Govt they can't make a successful business.

Sometimes I think the Movie and (espeically) the Music industries won't be content until the government outright introduces a "media tax" and gives it directly to the industry, regardless of whether anyone wants to actually buy what they produce.

I've got this crazy (and probably stupid) vision in my head of the RIAA and related organisations that no longer even pretends to produce something, and yet is shoveled money by the government as a way of "protecting artists" or something. Doubt it would ever get that far, but I'm sure some people in said organisations has had a similar, more sinister vision.

Hmmm. A government agency that doesn't actually do anything, yet continues to be fed billions in tax dollars that no one wants to pay. There's a joke in there somewhere.

-You can't sing in the shower without paying royalties-Digital formats move to a pay-per-view or pay-per-listen model, where your TV or computer can count the number of heads in the room and charge you for each-Your Internet connection is fully monitored by your ISP (doubling your subscriber rate, but it's to stop piracy!)-Content restriction software becomes mandatory on every computer (this will outlaw Linux as nobody will take the time to produce a version of this software for Linux) (alternately we could just make Trusted Computing mandatory)-All your devices will connect to an authorization server and check a whitelist of "approved" content each time you try to play a song or whatever, and will not play any file that is not explicitly authorized (has the added effect of forcing you to buy RIAA music instead of competing indie music)-Fair use is abolished (has sort of happened in the US with the DMCA) and infringement is a criminal offense-Copyright terms are perpetual... maybe with "minus a day" put in to technically adhere to the Constitution-Portable storage devices such as flash drives must connect with an authorization server if you try to copy a file from them (goodbye sneakernet)-Use of a VPN, use of encryption, and use of Tor or any similar network is illegal-Having Freenet, a BitTorrent client, a client for any other p2p program, an IRC client, an email client or an IM client is illegal, since you can use any of them for piracy

Sometimes I think the Movie and (espeically) the Music industries won't be content until the government outright introduces a "media tax"

The funny thing is we already have something like this in the UK with the TV license, used to fund the BBC. The thing is, it actually works rather well. When the BBC remember who they are, and stop trying to compete with low-grade commercial TV, they make some very good stuff - everything from News and current affairs (including a very strong web presence) through drama and comedy. And without commercials. Just so long as we give the cash to a bunch of people interested in making good media, rather than the money-grabbing lowlife who are currently destroying music and cinema, it could work well.

The funny thing is we already have something like this in the UK with the TV license, used to fund the BBC. The thing is, it actually works rather well. When the BBC remember who they are, and stop trying to compete with low-grade commercial TV, they make some very good stuff - everything from News and current affairs (including a very strong web presence) through drama and comedy. And without commercials. Just so long as we give the cash to a bunch of people interested in making good media, rather than the money-grabbing lowlife who are currently destroying music and cinema, it could work well.

I think that's a great model. The trick is to identify the people who fit the mold of corporatist executive and apparatchik and feed them feet first into a wood chipper. I think a good litmus test would be asking them what they think about this idea. If they say it's a good idea, go Fargo on 'em.

Most countries have some government supported content. These new proposals are however aimed at funneling money into only-for-profit corporations. After 90 years of consolidating power, their right to profit is virtually constitutional.

Sometimes I think the Movie and (espeically) the Music industries won't be content until the government outright introduces a "media tax" and gives it directly to the industry,

Sorry but wrong.

The Movie and (especially) the Music industries won't be content until the government outright introduces a "media tax" and gives it directly to the industry and permits price fixing across the board so you have to pay tax as well as paying a hefty sum for a license (fair enough, the media cartel already price fix

"The report was written by Patrick Zelnik, Guillaume Cerutti and Jacques Toubon. Zelnik is president of Impala, a network of independent record companies."
They didn't even bother to get a 3rd party to write this toilet paper of a report.
Isn't this basically like making the average tax payer insure a business against the possible theft of an intangible object?

Also [wapedia.mobi]: "
The Toubon Law (full name: law
94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language), is a law of the
French government mandating the use of the French language in official government
publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in
commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication
contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some other
contexts."

Isn't this basically like making the average tax payer insure a business against the possible theft of an intangible object?

What a good idea! I'm sure Goonswarm would have liked some real money insurance on their titans [slashdot.org] (especially if the real money insurance is anything like the in game fake money insurance, heh heh heh). And taxpayers would be supporting a worthy cause (for some definition of "worthy" that probably wouldn't be commonly held).

Although making it primarily go to media companies is the wrong approach, taxing online ads to help fund cyber-enforcement isn't such a bad idea.

It'll make "you're funding a dodgy site!" lawsuits more difficult for one thing but the revenue could also be used to fund prosecutions against adverts that mislead consumers. Both (legal) advertisers and consumers would benefit.

Of course that isn't what the money would probably end up being spent on but meh...

My perpetual motion business is doing very badly. I propose that in order to maintain this valuable source of employment, schools, laboratories, universities and libraries are all taxed. They keep discouraging my investors...

Well, that's good, but lets address the original problem - roads have been used for smuggling for many years so lets tax billboard advertisers for the losses incurred by overland smuggling. Petition your local lawmaker NOW!

When he's not stirring up racism to try to up their votes, he's busy gazing admiringly at China. But he's not alone. Bush's best friend, Bono (of soup-elevator music boy's band "U2" fame) has the same idea. "Great" minds "think" alike.

What you don't know is that the fucktard also wants to tax inkjet cartridges(*), because he heard books are being pirated, and he obviously thinks people print ebooks. After all, that's how he reads 'em fancy newfangled electronic males.

the idea that distributors (oh, you thought this was about artists?) need to permanently derive an income because they once had an oligopoly is madness. no, they will die away, and artists will make cash directly from their fans via ancillary revenues (concerts, ads, endorsements, personalized content, etc)

recorded music will serve the same function that free radio once did in a previous era. a previous era that is dead. its dead, you do understand that, right?

The key question is if this tax will in fact be used to help the artists or will it be yet another way for media conglomerates to suck on the government's tit while the artist itself, the creative mind responsible for creating a work of art, will continue to get the shaft and continue to be relegated as simple temporary worker, receiving nothing more than a symbolic compensation for a one-off job. This is particularly sickening due to the fact that media conglomerates, which are thriving, are using their power and influence to not only avoid compensating any artist but also to screw the entire world out of their culture and their rights to access works of art without being subjected to the whims of a totalitarian gatekeeper.

Every time a significant portion of my posts is quoted, that is a slight, but non-zero infringment on my creative works.

Therefore, I demand that forum posts be included as part of the metric for determining who gets paid. This demand is every bit as cromulent as the demand to extract money from an unrelated party to pay for a supposed violation on a subset of the total creative works that are actually being infringed upon.

Every time I see taxation used in ways other than to support the common good in some way such as government services, infrastructure or the like, I have to protest. I have to protest especially when taxes collected are awarded to parties who did not earn or work for it as "compensation" for an offence that no one has been charged with. This does not define taxation as much as it describes "FINING!" In short, the entire population is being fined without due process.

The game is a'foot! First show concern for a non-problem and then propose a solution that will create more government jobs and stuff the government with more money. Ignore the fact that musical artists as well as others often have higher sales driven by the advertising effect of pirated materials.

... wasen't it a frenchman [Flaubert?] who said "The art of taxation is plucking the goose with the least amount of squawking?" So taxes should make sense if they are to be effective.

Taxing on-line ads would do nothing to impede piracy. Less than a bandwidth tax. It would be ultimately paid for by the customers of online advertisers, most a tax on online products and services. I have no doubt the French govt would like to tax these to save their bricks-and-mortar over whom they have more control. Onlin

I get tired of the focus on music and video. Piracy takes place in all industries and is something everyone else just has to deal with.

Consider any company that has invested millions of dollars in building a brand or educating the consumer on their product (let alone the R&D) and along comes someone who decides to market a knock-off. The knock-off is pirating the marketing of the original company. The MP3 is a knock-off of the original media. Sometimes the knock-off designer purse or golf club is exactly the same material and quality as the original. It's the same issue.

I have spent millions marketing products before and have had to deal with 'copy' products. No one has offered to implement a tax and reimburse me for my losses.

I hate it when it happens. I could make considerably more money if it didn't happen. In reality though the fact that it happens is actually in the consumer's best interests. If I spend lavishly on marketing, that doesn't improve the quality of the product the end user buys, it merely means more people will pay more money for the same product. The piracy factor puts a cap on the marketing dollars I spend on a product and it puts a cap on the premium I can charge. If I spend lavishly on marketing or make my profit margin too high, the piracy gets worse. The piracy forces me to cap my marketing costs and profit margin and keeps in check the end price paid by the consumer. I'm forced to provide a product of 'value' where the margins between manufactured cost and sell price aren't too high to invite pirates and that pressure actually works in the consumers best interest.

Want to end music piracy? Drop the price of a download from $0.99 to $0.25 or $0.10 even. The increase in volume will make up for the reduced margins. 50 Million sales at $0.25 is still some good revenuce for a single track. Rampant piracy is symptomatic of consumer gouging. If these forces make all other industries respect consumer value, why should the music industry be any different?

But what about the watchmakers? After all, I get loads of spam through my Google Mail account offering counterfeit designer watches for sale, so surely some of this tax should go to them. Then there are all the other designer goods; clothes, handbags, perfume - and pirated software, that needs to be accounted for as well. Not to mention the banks, they have suffered losses due to phishing sites that are often made available through paid Google adverts, so they need a cut as well...

You see where I'm going with this - piracy and the death of the creative arts may be a current hot topic, but (as much as I hate to use the phrase) it's a slippery slope if you allow the government to levy punative taxes on successful companies in order to "compensate" those who haven't found a way to stay profitable (or, in actuality, are extremely profitable, but not as profitable as they *want* to be, which is certainly the case with the big music and movie labels).

Or how about the laws about dodgy adverts/making money from illegal business are enforced and Google et al are fined for allowing their adverts to be used on dodgy websites (giving them a little bit of slack to at least catch it first)? That way no-one is unfairly taxed (i.e. advertisers who are more picky about adverts), and the laws that already exist are actually enforced.

I honestly don't see how they could ever expect to implement this - I don't think they can tax foreign advertisers (impossible to enforce unless those advertisers sell directly into France in which case they could just add their media bully tax at the sales stage but then that's not a tax on advertising because a user might be buying the goods without having seen or clicked an ad) and surely if they try and tax their own advertisers it will make their homegrown goods less competitive globally or force their